AIC's 53rd Annual Meeting

Small cultural heritage institutions like community-based archives and museums rarely have preservation expertise. Best preservation and archival practices may not be their main focus – keeping and telling their story is. An outreach event, Preservation in Action, collaborates with organizations like this to implement aspects of collections care while balancing their community-centered mission. Organized through the long active Preservation Section of the American Library Association (ALA), the day-long outreach event takes place at the annual ALA conference. Preservation in Action (PiA) has a 3-prong approach to working with organizations representing an underserved community: 1) provide preservation training to staff; 2) introduce preservation to conference attendees whose jobs may or may not involve collections care; 3) rehouse collections with a “many hands make light work” model. PiA is specifically not a “service project,” but a collaboration between trained preservation librarians and these institutions that lack expertise. The training and hands-on activities with participants who have different levels of experience can be unpredictable but always enriching



A grant-funded archiving initiative at a Puerto Rican Cultural Center has led to a growing collection of posters documenting decades of social justice activism in the Boricua community. The colorful screenprinted posters fit into oversize folders and boxes, except for a group that had been glued to cardboard. The situation required on-the-spot decisions and conversations with the staff. In this case, the archivist decided to leave the newsprint posters on the acidic board and order more archival boxes later. We relied on each other to offer solutions



At a Chinese History Museum, we found extensively embroidered and beaded textiles during the group rehousing project. I wanted to bulk up any harsh creases, but the collections manager was concerned about losing box space with just one dress. Through joint problem-solving, we found a middle ground to protect the textile without taking up too much room



Other times our progress fades. At an organization with changing staff and strategic visions, the housing of photos and re-sleeving of a famous DJ’s LPs was later changed or undone. The artifacts’ uses evolved



Over the past several years, I’ve learned lessons about organizing these events at archives and museums. A stable infrastructure is necessary. Logistics like monitoring a waiting list, delivery of supplies, and ordering lunch are time consuming. Having a local committee member is best to evaluate the collections and estimate supplies. A participant will always ask a wonderfully unanswerable question. While institutions learn from us, we also learn from them. Our strict best practices aren’t an option for many organizations. This provides us with an opportunity to be flexible, think creatively, and listen to those outside our profession.

 

[Images in the poster would include: visually interesting posters, intricate Chinese textiles, photos in housings, and group action shots, hands shown only.]